Came across some very interesting statistics today about the average age of the users of various social media sites. To summarise:

MySpace = 26 years old
Twitter = 31 years old
Facebook = 33 years old
LinkedIn = 39 years old

I think this accurately reflects perceptions about what each of these sites/services is used for and by which groups. For example, MySpace has developed into a great resource for music enthusiats and bands etc whereas LinkedIn sits very much in the realm of professionals and business people looking to make contacts and grow networks.

That Twitter and Facebook sit between these two is fairly unsurprising as they are much more general in their scope and relevant to virtually anyone online. It will be interesting to see how these mean ages change over time as Twitter and Facebook find their long-term roles rather than somewhat competing for the same market.

On a personal level, I’m not entirely convinced that Twitter will be around in 12-18 months time as already the bubble seems to be bursting. Until it finds a real reason behind it’s existence, it will be in danger of simply being cast aside as the next big thing comes along. Facebook may have a longer term future as an online depository for images, videos, contacts etc, so long as it stops pretending to be Twitter!!

What do you think? Which social media sites do you use and which ones do you think will be here in the future?